WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.916 align:middle line:90%


00:00:01.916 --> 00:00:05.269 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:00:05.269 --> 00:00:06.710 align:middle line:90%


00:00:06.710 --> 00:00:10.730 align:middle line:84%
I'll just read two more
things, a brief passage

00:00:10.730 --> 00:00:12.290 align:middle line:90%
from Crossing the Yard.

00:00:12.290 --> 00:00:16.580 align:middle line:84%
This is 30 years as
a prison volunteer.

00:00:16.580 --> 00:00:19.520 align:middle line:84%
I'm now working in the
federal prison, which

00:00:19.520 --> 00:00:23.930 align:middle line:84%
is a big improvement
over the state, which

00:00:23.930 --> 00:00:25.970 align:middle line:90%
I've been in for 35 years.

00:00:25.970 --> 00:00:28.740 align:middle line:90%


00:00:28.740 --> 00:00:30.180 align:middle line:90%
This is just a little passage.

00:00:30.180 --> 00:00:32.360 align:middle line:90%
It goes back to Florence.

00:00:32.360 --> 00:00:34.700 align:middle line:84%
I started in Florence,
which was then

00:00:34.700 --> 00:00:39.560 align:middle line:84%
the only prison in the state,
on death row in the '70s,

00:00:39.560 --> 00:00:45.290 align:middle line:84%
early '70s, and then moved
into the general population.

00:00:45.290 --> 00:00:50.180 align:middle line:84%
And I was at Florence eight
or nine years, I guess.

00:00:50.180 --> 00:00:53.840 align:middle line:84%
Florence has a way
of haunting people.

00:00:53.840 --> 00:00:55.460 align:middle line:90%
It always haunted me.

00:00:55.460 --> 00:00:59.390 align:middle line:84%
And I've talked to
several other people.

00:00:59.390 --> 00:01:03.207 align:middle line:84%
One of my ex-students
wrote back and said,

00:01:03.207 --> 00:01:04.790 align:middle line:84%
years later-- he'd
been out for years,

00:01:04.790 --> 00:01:07.200 align:middle line:84%
had been teaching in
college, as a matter of fact.

00:01:07.200 --> 00:01:11.450 align:middle line:84%
He said, I live in this
apartment and I feed the dogs.

00:01:11.450 --> 00:01:14.060 align:middle line:90%
And I come here and I sleep.

00:01:14.060 --> 00:01:19.620 align:middle line:84%
But I know I still
live in Florence.

00:01:19.620 --> 00:01:22.680 align:middle line:90%
He couldn't get out of it.

00:01:22.680 --> 00:01:23.550 align:middle line:90%
OK.

00:01:23.550 --> 00:01:26.040 align:middle line:84%
This is after I
have left Florence

00:01:26.040 --> 00:01:31.540 align:middle line:84%
and have started up workshops
down here, outside of Tucson.

00:01:31.540 --> 00:01:34.450 align:middle line:84%
Most people aren't aware that
there are seven state prisons

00:01:34.450 --> 00:01:38.500 align:middle line:84%
and three federal prisons
just off Wilmot, just

00:01:38.500 --> 00:01:43.580 align:middle line:84%
off the freeway, but out
of sight, pretty much.

00:01:43.580 --> 00:01:45.890 align:middle line:84%
"I have not been inside
the Arizona State Prison

00:01:45.890 --> 00:01:49.580 align:middle line:84%
at Florence since I met for
the last time with the workshop

00:01:49.580 --> 00:01:53.720 align:middle line:84%
I directed there
from 1974 to 1980,

00:01:53.720 --> 00:01:56.270 align:middle line:84%
although I have stayed in
touch with several of the men

00:01:56.270 --> 00:01:59.280 align:middle line:90%
from that workshop.

00:01:59.280 --> 00:02:02.340 align:middle line:84%
When I try to remember what
it was like at Florence, what

00:02:02.340 --> 00:02:04.710 align:middle line:84%
comes back to me,
other than the faces

00:02:04.710 --> 00:02:09.759 align:middle line:84%
of the men in the workshop,
are the sounds and the silence.

00:02:09.759 --> 00:02:14.590 align:middle line:84%
Florence was a place defined
by the almost unbearable noise

00:02:14.590 --> 00:02:19.640 align:middle line:84%
of confined life and the
prophetic silence of death.

00:02:19.640 --> 00:02:24.230 align:middle line:84%
I remember both its
noise and its silence.

00:02:24.230 --> 00:02:26.150 align:middle line:84%
Sometimes at night,
when I was crossing

00:02:26.150 --> 00:02:29.300 align:middle line:84%
the deserted main
yard, it was so still I

00:02:29.300 --> 00:02:31.970 align:middle line:84%
could hear the coyotes
howling in the desert

00:02:31.970 --> 00:02:36.140 align:middle line:84%
outside the prison,
howling as if in pain.

00:02:36.140 --> 00:02:38.210 align:middle line:84%
Then a guard's
laughter would flare

00:02:38.210 --> 00:02:42.110 align:middle line:84%
like a match flame from the
parapet on the wall above,

00:02:42.110 --> 00:02:44.420 align:middle line:90%
and the silence would return.

00:02:44.420 --> 00:02:47.630 align:middle line:84%
A listening, waiting
kind of silence,

00:02:47.630 --> 00:02:52.880 align:middle line:84%
expecting to be shattered by
a gunshot, a cry, a siren,

00:02:52.880 --> 00:02:55.850 align:middle line:84%
or the clang of the huge
metal gate behind me

00:02:55.850 --> 00:02:58.820 align:middle line:90%
as I left for the night.

00:02:58.820 --> 00:03:01.580 align:middle line:84%
Once I was taken
into cell block 2.

00:03:01.580 --> 00:03:06.110 align:middle line:84%
I don't remember why I was
taken there or who took me.

00:03:06.110 --> 00:03:08.240 align:middle line:84%
Perhaps it was a
little private tour

00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:10.790 align:middle line:84%
some member of the
administration was giving me.

00:03:10.790 --> 00:03:13.730 align:middle line:84%
Such things were not
unusual in those days.

00:03:13.730 --> 00:03:17.210 align:middle line:84%
Although it does seem that I
had a particular destination

00:03:17.210 --> 00:03:20.630 align:middle line:84%
in mind, and that I
stopped at a specific cell

00:03:20.630 --> 00:03:23.210 align:middle line:90%
and talked to a specific inmate.

00:03:23.210 --> 00:03:26.870 align:middle line:84%
But I have no recollection
of which inmate.

00:03:26.870 --> 00:03:29.600 align:middle line:90%
All I remember is the noise.

00:03:29.600 --> 00:03:33.230 align:middle line:84%
It was as if I were
inside some huge drum,

00:03:33.230 --> 00:03:35.780 align:middle line:90%
being pounded on mercilessly.

00:03:35.780 --> 00:03:38.270 align:middle line:84%
I was in shock
because of the noise

00:03:38.270 --> 00:03:41.030 align:middle line:84%
that struck me in the face
as soon as I walked in,

00:03:41.030 --> 00:03:45.080 align:middle line:84%
like the 110-degree heat
strikes me in the face in August

00:03:45.080 --> 00:03:48.420 align:middle line:84%
as it bounces off
the Tucson sidewalks.

00:03:48.420 --> 00:03:51.620 align:middle line:84%
I felt assaulted, as
if by some huge animal

00:03:51.620 --> 00:03:54.620 align:middle line:84%
who was pressing against
me, sucking all the air out

00:03:54.620 --> 00:03:59.240 align:middle line:84%
of my lungs and squeezing my
head between its terrible paws.

00:03:59.240 --> 00:04:04.130 align:middle line:84%
I had never before
experienced noise like that.

00:04:04.130 --> 00:04:08.210 align:middle line:84%
CB2, as it is called, is
a tall, austere building

00:04:08.210 --> 00:04:11.750 align:middle line:84%
with considerable dignity
when seen from the outside.

00:04:11.750 --> 00:04:14.210 align:middle line:90%
It could house a London bank.

00:04:14.210 --> 00:04:17.660 align:middle line:84%
The prison folklore says
that it was a monastery

00:04:17.660 --> 00:04:19.579 align:middle line:84%
before the rest of
the prison was built

00:04:19.579 --> 00:04:22.730 align:middle line:90%
around it in 1908 and 1909.

00:04:22.730 --> 00:04:27.140 align:middle line:84%
But the official history
says it was built in 1932.

00:04:27.140 --> 00:04:31.950 align:middle line:84%
It has good lines and good
proportions with tall windows.

00:04:31.950 --> 00:04:35.040 align:middle line:84%
I had passed it many times
and thought that it looked out

00:04:35.040 --> 00:04:38.040 align:middle line:84%
of place, neoclassical,
surrounded

00:04:38.040 --> 00:04:40.590 align:middle line:90%
by other nondescript structures.

00:04:40.590 --> 00:04:44.430 align:middle line:84%
From the outside, I could
hear a kind of low roar coming

00:04:44.430 --> 00:04:46.830 align:middle line:84%
from it, but I was
completely unprepared

00:04:46.830 --> 00:04:48.900 align:middle line:90%
for the noise level inside.

00:04:48.900 --> 00:04:52.620 align:middle line:84%
It is actually a large
concrete cage, divided

00:04:52.620 --> 00:04:54.840 align:middle line:90%
into many smaller metal cages.

00:04:54.840 --> 00:04:59.460 align:middle line:84%
It has three tiers of cells
with metal bars across the front

00:04:59.460 --> 00:05:03.360 align:middle line:84%
of each cell and catwalks
running around the upper two

00:05:03.360 --> 00:05:04.620 align:middle line:90%
levels.

00:05:04.620 --> 00:05:07.200 align:middle line:84%
Hundreds of
televisions and radios

00:05:07.200 --> 00:05:10.830 align:middle line:84%
were blaring on dozens
of different channels

00:05:10.830 --> 00:05:12.030 align:middle line:90%
and stations.

00:05:12.030 --> 00:05:15.930 align:middle line:84%
The clang of metal on
metal was deafening.

00:05:15.930 --> 00:05:19.110 align:middle line:84%
Men were shouting to each
other in several languages,

00:05:19.110 --> 00:05:21.900 align:middle line:84%
having to shout to be
heard over the din.

00:05:21.900 --> 00:05:26.190 align:middle line:84%
Several men were trying to play
guitars, no two the same songs.

00:05:26.190 --> 00:05:27.810 align:middle line:90%
Toilets were flushing.

00:05:27.810 --> 00:05:31.530 align:middle line:84%
Men were cursing,
laughing, singing.

00:05:31.530 --> 00:05:34.800 align:middle line:84%
Everything in CB2
that isn't concrete

00:05:34.800 --> 00:05:38.430 align:middle line:84%
is metal, except the
inmates and their bedding.

00:05:38.430 --> 00:05:41.730 align:middle line:84%
The sounds ricocheted
off nearly every surface.

00:05:41.730 --> 00:05:44.520 align:middle line:84%
There was a metal railing
around the catwalks,

00:05:44.520 --> 00:05:49.440 align:middle line:84%
but not high enough to prevent
depressed or despairing inmates

00:05:49.440 --> 00:05:52.620 align:middle line:84%
from diving off the upper
tiers to their deaths

00:05:52.620 --> 00:05:56.120 align:middle line:90%
on the concrete floor below.

00:05:56.120 --> 00:05:58.850 align:middle line:84%
One of the men in the
workshop told me about a time

00:05:58.850 --> 00:06:00.480 align:middle line:90%
when that happened.

00:06:00.480 --> 00:06:03.980 align:middle line:84%
He said they were marching along
the catwalk and down the stairs

00:06:03.980 --> 00:06:07.160 align:middle line:84%
to go to chow when
everything went silent

00:06:07.160 --> 00:06:09.620 align:middle line:90%
after somebody shouted, 'Look!

00:06:09.620 --> 00:06:10.640 align:middle line:90%
Up there!

00:06:10.640 --> 00:06:12.700 align:middle line:90%
It's Joey!'

00:06:12.700 --> 00:06:15.730 align:middle line:84%
Then the only sound was the
sound of a guard's boots

00:06:15.730 --> 00:06:17.620 align:middle line:84%
on the metal floor
of the catwalk,

00:06:17.620 --> 00:06:20.230 align:middle line:84%
running toward Joey,
who was balanced

00:06:20.230 --> 00:06:23.830 align:middle line:84%
on the railing along the
top tier, his feet dangling

00:06:23.830 --> 00:06:26.050 align:middle line:90%
in space.

00:06:26.050 --> 00:06:29.510 align:middle line:84%
Then one clear voice screamed
from the other side of the cell

00:06:29.510 --> 00:06:32.410 align:middle line:90%
block, high and hysterical.

00:06:32.410 --> 00:06:34.390 align:middle line:84%
It could have been
the voice of a woman,

00:06:34.390 --> 00:06:38.540 align:middle line:84%
but there was no woman in
the old monastery that day.

00:06:38.540 --> 00:06:40.810 align:middle line:90%
"Go for it, Joey!"

00:06:40.810 --> 00:06:44.050 align:middle line:90%
And without a word, he did.

00:06:44.050 --> 00:06:47.170 align:middle line:84%
Some of the men looked away from
the body and the pool of blood

00:06:47.170 --> 00:06:50.230 align:middle line:84%
spreading out from it
on the concrete floor.

00:06:50.230 --> 00:06:53.290 align:middle line:84%
Others couldn't, and
stared as if hypnotized,

00:06:53.290 --> 00:06:57.180 align:middle line:84%
as they were herded past
on their way to chow."

00:06:57.180 --> 00:06:58.000 align:middle line:90%